That soaring hawk. The waiting room was quiet, but I was not waiting quietly, at least not on the inside. Then came the blast of the Keurig machine and that wonderful penetrating aroma of fresh coffee. I knew that machine was there in the reception area because one half of this large office did cardiac stress tests, including chemical stress tests where people sometimes had a reaction that was helped with a simple cup of coffee. I had experienced that last year.
“Oh, Lord! I hope the doctor does not tell me I need another one of those this year!”
Tired of sitting, I walked over and stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows on the second floor of the doctor’s office. Since third grade, being even one floor above ground brings me back to the first time I was in a home with a second floor, when our Florida family visited my paternal grandmother in Nashville. I can still see Granny, smiling and leading us all through the side-entrance and up the narrow, carpeted, tunnel-like stairway to her second-floor apartment where, wonder of wonders, you looked right into the branches of trees.
The simple charm of that came back as my eyes traced the wave-like line of treetops. Then I saw it, just a spot at first, in the distance. Moving in narrow arcs from side to side, the hawk drew closer. As it drew closer the width of those arcs increased. The bird soared, wings fully opened, moving only to change altitude or make a turn and even then, only making slow, gentle flaps as its body angled into the turns.
Like many modern doctors’ offices, the entire wall was floor to ceiling windows. I watched as that hawk flew left and right, back and forth, turning just as it was about to go out of my sight and going back in the other direction, over and over and over. Like it was performing, dancing in the air, just for me, it flew. Effortlessly.
“Lord, thank You. I get it. That hawk is soaring, as an eagle, just by spreading its wings. It is riding on the wind. I know You want me to mount up over the difficulties of life this day to soar with You, as You say in that verse in Isaiah 40. I know You want me to enjoy this day and be glad because You have made this day for me. It is no accident.” (Psalm 118:24)”
Isaiah 40,“a grand chapter.” Isaiah 40, which contains that well-known verse about mounting up like an eagle, “is a grand chapter” as Henry H. Halley said. Verses 1 through 11 speak of the coming of Jesus. Verses 12-31, the rest of the chapter, speak of “the infinite power of God, and the eternal youth of those who trust Him” (Halley’s Bible Handbook, p. 385). To read the entire chapter is to walk, not on a field strewn with diamonds, but a field comprised of diamonds. We will pick up but a few diamonds of truth in this short writing, just enough to get the context for Isaiah 40:28-31, the passage we will focus on.
Isaiah 40 is the first chapter of a lengthy passage (chapters 40 through 56), that presents God’s promises of the coming deliverance for His people. God starts this discourse with “Comfort, comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1, AMPC) and then He tells them to get ready because He, their sovereign Lord is coming “with power.”
Then Isaiah shifts into one of the many sublime passages in the Word that describe God’s power. We hear the same thunderous truths we hear when God addresses Job in Job 38 through 41. In Job 38, God asks Job “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? (v. 4) Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place? (v. 12), Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? (v. 18). In Job 39, God asks Job “Do you give the horse its strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? (v. 19). “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?” (v. 26-27). (NIV)
Similarly, in Isaiah 40 we hear God ask:
Verse 12-15. “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens?” and “Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed Him as His counselor?” Then God says that “before Him all nations are as nothing; they are regarded by Him as worthless and less than nothing.” (v. 12, 13, and5a).
Verse 21-24. God asks haven’t you heard? Don’t you know that God reigns over all that is, and that He is omnipotent, omnipresent. “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.”
Verse 25-26. With that in His listener’s minds, God, our Holy and loving God, then asks, “To whom will you compare Me? Or who is My equal?” Look up at the sky and think about Who made the heavens. Think about Who calls each star by name and keeps them all, right where they are.
Verses 27-31. God then asks, in view of all that, why do you think God is not watching you? “Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God.” (NIV) God asks haven’t you heard, don’t you know, that “The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” And He never tires, He understands everything, and He gives strength to those who are weak. Even when human strength fails, God gives new strength to those who hope in Him. Then they soar and move forward like the most majestic creature of the air. They run and do not grow weary.
What does waiting mean? Let’s look at Verse 31 in the Amplified Bible
“But those who wait for the LORD–who expect, look for, and hope in Him—shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint or become tired.” (Isaiah 40:31, emphasis added, AMP)
That word wait is rendered, in various translations, as wait, hope and trust. I’ve most often heard it quoted as wait. Notice that “waiting for the LORD” means to “expect, look for, and hope in Him.” In our humanity, we want to obey God and immediately see results. We want to read a verse, do what it says and see God move immediately, certainly within a day or two. But waiting, by definition, means a time of staying where you are until something happens. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines wait as “To stay or rest in expectation; to stop or remain stationary, till the arrival of some person or event.” So, we must trust God, and wait for Him—with patience and expectation and hope. Then comes the result.
How does God say to wait? We are not only to wait. We are to wait with hope and confident expectation. While we wait with confidence in Him, God helps us and that gladdens our heart. Consider Psalm 28:7. “The Lord is my Strength and my [impenetrable] Shield; my heart trusts in, relies on, and confidently leans on Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him.” (emphasis added, AMP).
But what if we have no hope? What if we are not confident God will answer? God understands the heart. That is why He told us It only takes a mustard seed size bit of faith (Matthew 17:20). I believe that is why He included Mark 9:14-25 in the Bible, that story of the boy horribly afflicted by an unclean spirit. When Jesus told the boy’s desperate father anything is possible, the father cried “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” (NIV) That’s how honest we must be with God.
And if we do not feel even that much faith, He will give us the desire to feel it. In Philippians 2, Paul reassured people who were continuing to grow in the Lord that God would give them not only the strength and, power to do His will but the desire as well.
[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight. (Philippians 2:13)
Living, active faith. Do you see that this waiting God requires is not passive, but rather active? There is an if/then, cause/effect link between God’s kind of waiting and the rewards He promises. We hope confidently in Him. Then we wait. Then He renews our strength.
We see the same principle in Psalm 33:21. If you invert the clauses in that verse you get something like – because we have trusted, relied on and been confident in the Lord’s holy nature, our heart rejoices in Him (Psalm 33:21, AMPC paraphrased).
Again, this is what Jeremiah does in Lamentations 3:19-28. Because Jeremiah knows God is good to those who wait for Him hopefully and expectantly (v. 25) Jeremiah’s heart cries out, he takes a leap and says, “The Lord is my portion or share, says my living being (my inner self); therefore will I hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.” (v. 24) Jeremiah is saying he is trusting God as His allotted portion in life, just as the priests in Bible times received their sustenance from the people because God was their portion, their provider. The rest of the Israelites, the non-priests, worked in the fields to get their food, but the priests were provided food by God, through the other Israelites, because the priests spent the hours of their days serving Him. God was the portion of the priests (Numbers 18:20).
Eagles leap, then soar. While writing this blog post I looked at slow motion videos of eagles soaring. Then I wondered how do they start soaring? God embeds deep teachings in nature. Eagles start soaring by taking a leap. Although they can, somewhat passively, simply stretch out their wings when they soar, they start soaring by taking a leap.
I will not soar with God, resting in His strength, until I take a leap and choose to hope in Him, with confidence, expecting that He will come through for me.
Watch the video at the link below or find another one by typing “slow motion video of eagle taking off” into a search engine. Do you see that initial leap the eagle takes? As the eagle leaps, he starts spreading his wings. Look at the strength and power in those wings, and those bones in those wings, arms and elbows so to speak, as they bend and reach out, the muscles and corded tendons contracting then stretching out. See the feathers unfurl and spread.
https://rb.gy/pm0gtn
Notice how the wings change shape. See how very, very wide the wingspan is in proportion to the body. Notice how high up the wings reach and then how far down. “Eagles fly by utilizing their impressive wingspan, muscular bodies, and specialized flight adaptations…including a wing structure designed for maximum efficiency and the ability to manipulate wing shape and angel for lift and energy efficiency.´ How Do Eagles Fly? Revealing the Secrets of Their Soaring | Learn Bird Watching
Such a symphony of complexity, yet eagles leap then soar with ease because God made them with that capability.
You can do it! God commands the eagle to soar (Job 39:26) but within that command is the command to leap. It may not feel like it in some circumstances, but God has made us with the capacity to take leaps of faith and soar, with Him, above the worries of this earthly life. It all begins with choosing to believe His Word, by taking a leap. Friend, you can do it because God is working in you.
Thirty years ago I had been driving home from my secretarial job where I sat outside the door of a sarcastic, mean, and hyper-critical boss. I was feeling sorry for myself, dreading sitting down with the bills when I got home where I would have to stretch my single-parent income beyond belief, and angry that my daughter, at age 15, worked at McDonald’s so she could have extras like magazines, make-up to experiment with and an occasional movie. There, bumping along on the side of the road, in the uneven dirt, was a young man in a wheelchair. There were no feet propped on the footplates of the wheelchair.
Like a pouting little child stamping her foot, I had, finally, looked up at my Heavenly Father and raised my arms to Him. And, like the father of the prodigal who was eagerly watching for his son to return, God ran.
Oh, those foxes, those little foxes! [My heart was touched and I fervently sang to Him my desire] Take for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards [of our love], for our vineyards are in blossom.” (Solomon 2:15, AMPC). When I look back now, now that I have, by grace, regained peace, the problems that made me stumble seem so little. I am sure you could write a similar list. Mine was ongoing and worsening back problems; no funds to cover the treatment that might help; ongoing and worsening foot problems related to that; the need for minor foot surgery in two weeks, surgery that would further complicate all the back problems when I could not exercise for a while afterwards; having to wait three weeks for insurance to cover new eyeglasses; worsening eye pain and strain each day, not knowing if that was caused by the need for new glasses or cataracts or dry eye, the expensive remedy for which insurance also did not cover.
[1] Ask God to forgive me for my wrong attitudes and complaining and ingratitude. Two verses I greatly value are: 1 John 1:9, which says “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (NIV)” So simple. So necessary. The second is Proverbs 28:13 which teaches us that “Whoever conceals their sin does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” In doing that, we humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand and He will lift us up in due time, as He promises in Peter 5:6-7.
[3] Ask God to impress the lesson of this painful experience deeply on my heart. Psalm 103:18 in the AMPC has a vital lesson for me. Verse 17 says that “. . . from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him. . . “(NIV) The thought continues in verse 18: “to such as keep His covenant—hearing, receiving, loving and obeying it; and to those who [earnestly] remember His commands to do them [imprinting them on their hearts] (emphasis added). To me this verse says that when we earnestly, whole-heartedly, lovingly obey the Lord we imprint, or write, His word on our heart. This is part of the new covenant we now have through Jesus that God explains in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 10:16 God says “I will imprint My laws upon their hearts, and I will inscribe them on their minds (on their inmost thoughts and understanding.)” (AMPC)
[4] Thank Him for His loving discipline (Hebrews 12). In times of trial, whether we are partly the cause or not, it is well worth taking time to ponder the truths of Hebrews 12:1-13 and John 15:1-17. God uses hardships to train us, for our good, so that we may share in His holiness (Hebrews 12:10b). He trims or removes from our lives the things that bear no fruit and He also works with the things that do bear fruit so that those things may bear even more fruit (John 15). Clearly, some of my branches needed to be cut off and thrown away. However, God was lovingly working with my heart so that the faith, hope, trust, and self-control I had would increase.
Even when we, being so very human, let wrong thoughts stay in our heart, God is not mad at us any more than a parent is mad with children who react in childish ways. He just longs to lift us up and restore us to His side. Think of how often He forgave the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness and then when they lived in the land He had promised.
The lilies that live in the field,
Throughout the Bible, God’s presence is associated with thunder. Job 40:9 asks “Have you an arm like God? Or can you thunder with a voice like His?” Think of God’s appearances to Israel in the desert. For example, in Exodus 19:16, after Moses had in obedience to God’s instructions consecrated the people, “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.” Slowly read Psalm 29 for another description of the power of God’s voice.
[31] At the voice of the LORD the Assyrians will be stricken with dismay and terror, when He smites them with His rod. In pondering Exodus 14, which tells how God delivered Israel by parting the Red Sea and then closing it up again to destroy the pursing army of Egypt, I often wondered how wide the pathway through the sea was. No one knows for sure but I believe God made it so that everyone who walked through that path was close enough to see the water, maybe even feel the spray from it, so that they would deeply experience the awe and wonder of what God was doing for them.
Celebrating with loved ones is particularly meaningful, leaving lingering, pleasant memories. I can still smell the rich aroma of the coffeehouse that my daughter and son-in-law took me to when we celebrated my graduation. I can still see their smiling faces looking at me across the tiny table. They took time out of their daily life to celebrate with me.
I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.” (AMPC)
Sharing a personal application: Just as Israel turned to Egypt for help, when I was severely depressed a few years ago I turned to worldly methods first, rather than God. I was as rebellious as Israel. For years, God had been telling me through Bible teachers to dig deeper into, to meditate on and to speak His Word all day long, to the point of what many call extremism. For years, teachers and preachers who had overcome great personal problems stirred my spirit. I felt God’s anointing for me on their teaching. And they all stressed depending on God’s Word FIRST. They talked little if any about psychology.
While I was struggling so desperately with depression, unfortunately, my actions said I doubted God’s Word would heal my heart. When I finally did begin studying His Word for healing, at first I still tried to get it second hand by diligently studying the teaching of others. It was only when I sat down alone with God, my Bible and a concordance and began diligent study as well as meditation on God’s truths about fear, peace, and His great love for me personally that healing began.
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This book shows you how to use God’s Word to heal your heart, regardless of your problem, and walk closer to Him. My sincere prayer is that God uses it to speak to you, personally, in the ways only He knows you need. Friend, He really, really loves you!
Early morning thoughts. I took a sip of tea, leaned forward and opened the blinds behind the desk. There, in the yellow halo of light from the blazing security light affixed to the wall, three small gray and brown sparrows perched in the entwining branches of the crepe myrtle trees screening the window of my second floor condo. Two had their heads tucked under their wings, demonstrating all the flexibility usually attributed to those of the feline persuasion. The third miniature beauty was occupied with his morning ablutions, pecking his tiny beak atop, behind and under his uplifted snippet of a wing.
Coping with problems. I had recently started going to bed earlier so that I could get up earlier for the specific purpose of dividing up time spent sitting at the computer, part of ongoing efforts to keep on with the work of writing despite the recent barrage of age-related challenges like eye strain, stiff joints, fatigue, and on and on.
“I am sorry, Lord. Thank You for catching this attempt at fraud. Thank you that they only got one hundred dollars before the fraud protection system stopped it. Help me redeem this time, Lord. Let there be someone at the credit union that I can witness to. Help me have a good attitude.”
I sat back down at my desk and thought about the day and other blessings and protections. I had been up at five to drive someone I love to the hospital for a procedure, where all turned out to be fine, a blessing to that person and to me. On the way home, I had been passed on the interstate by two fire engines and an ambulance, on their way I soon saw as I creeped along in the backed-up traffic, to a bad car accident. Had I not had to wait an hour at the hospital while the check-in snafu got untangled before I left, I might have been in that accident.
27 “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 28 And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
27 Behold, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with His anger, and in thick, rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.
God used these words, I believe for emphasis, when He spoke through Isaiah in Isaiah 45:18 and said ‘For thus says the Lord—Who created the heavens, God Himself, Who formed the earth and made it, Who established it and did not create it to be a worthless waste; He formed it to be inhabited-I am the Lord, and there is no one else.”
God is furious when His children are hurt. Think how you feel when your loved one is treated cruelly. Multiply that by a million and you have a faint glimmer of understanding. In Psalm 18, earth trembles and mountains shake because God is angry at the enemy. Such is the power of this One who fights for us when we return to Him. Even when you disobey, even when you fail to regard God “as holy and honor His holy name [by regarding Him as your only hope of safety] (Isaiah 8:13a, AMPC), God is filled with wrath – because it is part of His nature. God hates sin and the destruction it brings whether His children are being attacked because of what we did or whether we are innocent of any guilt or iniquity.
Look at how David describes how angry God is when God comes to fight for him. “The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the mountains laid bare, at Your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of breath from Your nostrils.” (Psalm 18:15, NIV). Job 4:9 says that “those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. At the breath of God they are destroyed; at the blast of His anger they perish.” (NIV)
Some commentaries suggest that Isaiah 30:28 refers to the feast of unleavened bread, or Passover, because it was the only feast that began with a night celebration. Some also suggest that Passover was the most important of Jewish feasts. I believe that fits here because I believe God was wanting to give us a picture of how intensely joyful He wants to help us be while He fights for us once we return to trusting Him completely. As you likely know, the Passover feast commemorates Israel’s deliverance from Egypt.
This applies whether it is one of the all too frequent pop-up battles of everyday living—the boss criticizes, a large bill arrives, traffic gets snarled—or a long-standing battle where you have to fight weeks, months or years, like an addiction, climbing out of debt, or believing for salvation of loved ones.
Through His Spirit, He has come to live in me, so I have access to all that I need, and He has given me His Word as a shield and a weapon. If I love and serve Him whole-heartedly, with all my strength and soul and might, He declares me righteous, or in right standing, with Him and He helps me resist and overcome the enemy and live a holy life as well as a peaceful, joyful one.
Then I looked at the construction crew. Two men were using huge push brooms to smooth out the fresh asphalt. They all had long sleeve shirts and long pants on, a phenomenon I had thought peculiar when I first came to Texas ten years ago from Florida. I had learned since that people wear long sleeves because the Texas sun is more vicious than the Florida sun which passes through softening, highly humid air.